This is an open and unfiltered diary-style journal
on the life of James Robert Smith.
This blog will contain sometimes graphic experiences (both beautiful and ugly),
sometimes stark insight, and all honest and factual documentation of dreams, diet, activity, and thoughts.

Pages

Monday February 28 2011

DREAM: I’m driving a big 15-passenger van full of friends, but not close friends, just acquainted friends. We’re leaving New York City—the traffic is congested—it’s around 9am. On the interstate, there’s an exit directing us to Indian River Road. “Should we go that way guys?” In my mind I didn’t think we were going to Chesapeake but Virginia Beach, so I pass it. Regretting. The road changes. I’m driving over the ocean now. Somehow we stay afloat and then the van begins to levitate (This is all completely normal because all the other cars are doing the same thing. It’s a part of the journey.) Eventually, we’re all this ferry or ship. At the far end I’m leaning over and pulling things out of the water that people left behind including a camera tripod and picture frames.

Driving to meet up with Rachel Rephan. Her car is caputz for the time being. I arrive at the gate but the cute pot-bellied black man of a guard won’t let me in because visiting hours stop at midnight. He’s on the phone with Rachel repeating to her, “It’s in the handbook! No visitors after 12.” So she walks out in the windy drizzle of rain to meet me at the gate. A grape odor from her chewing gum fills the air. We convene at the Waffle House on Northhampton Boulevard. The room here is inverted with the kitchen on the opposite side and it’s a little more spacious than the Indian River one. I am reminded of the weekly Waffle House meetings with Becca on Mondays. Feels kind of like I’m cheating.

Sipping on Coffee with Sugar and Cream.

Discussing some of our observations on a few people we know. She reveals some metaphoric information about herself, “I don’t know, Robert. I’m kind of like a disease.”

Me: “What do you mean by that?”

Her: “I have this contagious ability that I don’t have control over and it gets me in trouble a lot………Rachel Aids.”

Me: “I think these people that you’re affecting have been pumped up with too many antibiotics and they’re not immune to your disease……You know I think I have that. I’ve seen that in the past. I definitely affected Margot with it…”

Her: “Robert Aids.”

Me: “Yeah. But then she ended up giving me her disease.” Margot Aids. “It sucks because I can’t watch anything or listen to anything without being reminded of her. I mean I got to give art it’s due but not dwell on it. I got to be like, okay this song reminds me of her and I like it because of its nostalgic quality. I’ll give it it’s due but then that’s it. Move on.”

She starts looking through the dream book Tristan gave me the other night calling out some of the subjects in dreams, “Octopus, Odor, Oceans…”

Me: “I dreamed of the ocean last night.”

Her: “Sea of life. Enormous emotional energy. Source of your life force. Lost at sea. You’re overwhelmed by emotion.” How appropriate.

Me: “I’m an ambitious person. It’s burdening. I feel like I have a ton of bricks on my back. I mean they’re heavy bricks but they’re pretty bricks, not the kind of bricks you want to put down.”

Her: “You build something out of the bricks.”

Me: “Well that’s what I’m trying to do. I just feel overwhelmed with it. I feel like I’m in a hurry to get something done before something else happens—before the world ends or something…………We’ve got to have times where we don’t care about the end of the world and have a good time. Make art. Have sex. Make love. Just share your life with somebody. That’s what we’re made for. I don’t want to lose that even if something bad is going to happen. That’s what makes us human. I want to be human.”

There’s commotion outside. A man is banging on his car window, which is running and locked, trying to wake up his girlfriend, who’s dead asleep in the passenger seat and not reacting to any sounds. He even shakes the car but nothing is working. She will not wake up. It’s attracting a lot of attention on our part and the other employees and customers. The cops show up and try flashing their lights. Still no luck. We depart Waffle House with nothing resolved—his car is still running, the girl is past out, the boy is frustrated.